Breakfast is Big

If you think you’ve seen more restaurants doing breakfast and brunch this year, it’s not your imagination.

With restaurants struggling to make a buck in this lackluster economy, more and more of them have decided to add brunch or breakfast to their menus in hopes of enticing more customers through their doors.

Will this trend continue when the economy picks up?

Read my story in today’s East Bay Express to find out, as well as to learn how some restaurants such as Fonda in Albany have successfully lured in customers on weekend mornings, while others like Incanto in San Francisco were not as fortunate.

I think it’s hard to find a restaurant that does both good dinners and brunch, so I can see why Incanto had a hard time attracting people to their new brunch menu. People either think of you ask brunch (i.e. Sunny Side Cafe) or dinner (i.e. Incanto). I love brunch, though.

I liked your article in the East Bay Express – very well written (goes without saying!). My brother-in-law lived in Berlin for 20 years and that was the first time I went to a “posh” restaurant as opposed to a diner for brunch. Nice to have proper food for a brunch.

Great post, I am curious if there was any further reason why Incanto did not succeed for brunch. I wonder if its location, a destination place for dinner for folks not in the neighborhood, but not willing to make the same trip for brunch.

I’ve also wondered if this is the same reason for the doughnut + Chinese restaurants that I keep running into, or if there’s another reason for that as well.

Hungry Dog: Just hold your cursor over the photo above and a caption will appear to reveal just what the lovely baked good is.

OysterCulture: Mark Pastore of Incanto also said that he thinks it takes a year for any new concept to really succeed. Unfortunately, in this economy, few restaurants are going to take a gamble for quite that length of time. So, I’m guessing that after three months, with only a fraction of the patrons they’d hope to get, Incanto decided it was just better to pull the plug on brunch.

I’m not sure about the origins of the Chinese restaurants + doughnuts trend. If I had to venture a guess, I would say that I do know that in Southern California, almost all the doughnut shops are run by Cambodians. When they immigrated here, they took jobs in doughnut shops, and then soon took over running them. With their success, other Cambodians who immigrated after them, followed suit. It could be that some Chinese immigrants also started working in the doughnut business. Perhaps, they realized that people don’t eat donuts 24-7, and that some Chinese food might be a welcome addition. Thus was born the all-in-one doughnut and take-out Chinese food joint.

I love eating breakfast out. Nothing better than reading a newspaper while savoring some excellent drip coffee with crunch french toast or a huge omelet. It’s sad to hear that restaurants are having such a difficult time I really hope things turn around this year for them! My parents owned a restaurant many years ago and I recall how difficult that business is–even if the food is good!

That muffin does indeed look yummy, especially since I’m sipping coffee without anything sweet to eat.